Some have compared the Hollywood studio system to a factory, and it is useful to remember that studios were out to make money first and art second. Their product output in 1937 surged to over 500 feature films. By the 1980s, this figure dropped to an average of 100 films per year. During the Golden Age, the studios were remarkably consistent and stable enterprises, due in large part to long-term management heads--the infamous "movie moguls" who ruled their kingdoms with iron fists. At MGM, Warner Bros. and Columbia, the same fabled immigrant showmen ran their studios for decades. Power, then, was definitely situated with the studio heads. The rise of the studio system also hinges on the treatment of stars, who were constructed and exploited to suit a studio's image and schedule. Actors and actresses were contract players bound up in seven-year contracts to a single studio, and the studio generally held all the options. Stars could be loaned out to other production companies at any time. Studios could also force bad roles on actors, and control the minutiae of stars' images with their mammoth in-house publicity departments.
American Film Institute | During the classical Hollywood era, each studio was renowned for a certain genre of film or a particular roster of stars. Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were some of the well-known performers that emerged during this period. In addition, the four actresses shown on left worked on such classics as Susan and God (1940), She Done Him Wrong (1933), Grand Hotel (1932) and Coquette (1929). Top row, from left to right: Joan Crawford (MGM) and Mae West (Paramount). Bottom row, from left to right: Greta Garbo (MGM) and Mary Pickford (United Artists). |
Somewhat paradoxically, however, studios also had to cultivate flexibility and product differentiation, in addition to consistent, factory output. Studio heads realized that they couldn't make the same film over and over again with the same cast of stars and still expect to keep turning a profit. Examining how each production company tried to differentiate itself from the rest of the market has led to loose characterizations of individual studios' styles.
Niche studio styles
e biggest cache of stars (Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracey, among others) and tended to put out a lot of all-star productions, such as Grand Hotel (1932). Paramount excelled in comedy, having Mae West, W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby at their disposal. Warner Bros. developed a reputation for gritty social realism, ranging from gangster pictures, which were often based on newspaper headlines, to war pictures and Westerns. 20th Century Fox forged the musical and a great deal of prestige biographies, such as Young Mr. Lincoln (1939).
RKO provided a haven for Orson Welles (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, etc.) and dance supernovas, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. RKO also created King Kong (1933). Columbia's major claim was director Frank Capra, including his masterpieces It Happened One Night (1934) and Mr. Deeds Goes To Town (1936), among others.
Universal thrilled and terrified audiences with the original Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931) and The Wolf Man (1941). United Artists, formed by silent greats Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks, specialized in distributing productions.
Early censorship
Despite the early proliferation of film production that occurred during the classical Hollywood period, studios were also challenged by growing governmental censorship efforts that aimed to limit audience-pleasing films filled with unnecessary sex and violence. The movies were born as a low form of entertainment, and early on certain groups decried the movies' capacity to lower morals. Stars' scandalous cavorting--most notably, Fatty Arbuckle's conviction for a kinky sex-related murder of a model in 1921--increasingly threatened the public's good graces towards the motion-picture industry. By 1922, it looked as if the studios faced imminent government intervention.
Rather than risk government intervention, the studios put William Hays, former Postmaster General of the United States, at the helm of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America organization (MPPDA), in the hopes of adequately self-censoring before the government intervened. The MPPDA also assembled a Production Code in 1930, a document that outlined, in excruciating detail, what could not be shown or said in movies.
The MPPDA's efforts didn't really work because there was no real means of enforcing the Production Code. Cinematic sex and violence continued to sell very well. So the early 1930s constitutes an amazingly steamy period, epitomized in actress Mae West's controversial lines that were filled with double entendres and sexual imagery: "I can make it happen when the shades go down," she purred. And audiences knew exactly what she was referring to by "it."
In 1934, the MPPDA put Joseph Breen in charge of the newly-renamed censorship body, the Production Code Administration (PCA). The PCA decided that films had to gain a seal signifying that they had met the moral guidelines outlined in the Code. Otherwise, a film could not be exhibited and the studio had to pay a $25,000 fine. This finally gave the Production Code the authority it previously lacked.
The PCA followed a script from first draft through production, and often Breen would butt heads with studios over a film's crossing the line from a moral perspective. The process generated a flurry of documents outlining what had to be cut out and why. These documents, now housed in various archives in Los Angeles, California, form a compelling social history of the attempt to develop movies that reflected the moral sentiments of the society.
Though this system ultimately broke down (the current rating system was adopted in 1968), the mesmerizing power of movies to both exhilarate and corrupt audiences remains a central American preoccupation. For example, Hollywood films are still criticized for the way in which they seduce underage viewers.
